Page 127 of Red Dragon
“Probably too windy,” Vorik muttered, though he didn’t know if the continuing gusts affected the canyon outside.
Inside the laboratory, the black dragon crouched, maw opening to reveal eager fangs. Since its gaze had focused skyward, Vorik thought it would fly up to battle the aerial intruders. Then, a softsnicksounded. Syla had cut the orb from its stalk. As she hurried to wrap it in protective bandages, the dragon’s head swung toward her, its red eyes glowing brighter.
“We may get a visitor.” Vorik jumped to put himself between Syla and the storm god’s defender, but his heart pounded. Facing adragon,especially one with enough power to make itseyesglow, would be a lot more difficult than battling the bug-lizards. “Any chance you can take your scalpel and find something to cut that will bring the barrier down so our people can help us?”
“Those aren’tmypeople,” Syla said, “but I’ll look.”
The dragon bunched its muscles and sprang. Wings flapping, it flew straight toward them, and there wasn’t time to speak further.
Not towardthem, Vorik realized. Just like with the creatures, Syla was its target.
“Run back to the bed,” he urged, shifting to block it. “Or try to find a way out. Or both.”
“I will, but you need to run too.”
With crystal formations all over, the dragon couldn’t fly as directly as in the open sky, but it came quickly, nevertheless. There wasn’t time for Vorik to run.
Syla hated to abandon Vorik to the wrath of a dragon—surely, even with his enhanced abilities, he couldn’t defeat one of theirkind—but he was right. If they couldn’t figure out how to escape the laboratory, they might all die here. Now that she had the orb, they had no reason to linger.
With the dark cloud and hideous visage of the storm god roiling in the center, she worried for all their lives. Especially when the red-eyed black dragon roared and breathed fire, the fluctuating orange light reflecting off the crystalline formations in the dark laboratory.
As she ran down the crooked aisles, trying to avoid creatures and find a way back to the others, she risked glancing back. She couldn’t see Vorik but, from the way the dragon leaped atop a workstation, one wing snapping the top off a crystal formation in its haste to move, it had to be chasing him.
He must have dared stab it to draw its attention away from her. The moon god bless him.
Vorik jumped onto a formation behind the dragon and came into her view, swinging his blade at its tail. He must have dived under the great creature to come up in that position. He managed to clip its tail, but the dragon was fast for such a huge foe. It whirled and flung fire at Vorik while slashing its deadly talons toward him.
Vorik ducked in time to avoid the flames, but they nearly caught him. The fire might have singed off some of his wild black hair.
Amazingly, Vorik rushedcloserto the dragon, diving below its slashing talons to reach its belly. He sliced into its scaled flesh, but right away, its fangs whipped down toward his head. He dove between two crystalline formations, and Syla lost sight of him again.
Terrified for him, she almost turned to run back to help, but what could she do? Throw an astringent at its eyes? No, she had to find a way out. For all of their sakes.
Overhead, Wreylith returned to the edge of the canyon. Syla couldn’t hear her—couldn’t hear anything of the battle raging overhead—but the dragon’s maw opened in what had to be a frustrated roar. She’d escaped—or slain—the yellow dragon that had been after her, and now she returned to tearing pieces of rock from the canyon rim.
Was it possible she would claw her way inside by destroying the areaaroundthe barrier?
As Syla patted her way along the wall, hoping to find a glowing crystal or switch that would open the barrier or turn off the defenses, Vorik came into her view again. He flew, somersaulting through the air, more than ten feet. The dragon must have struck him, knocking him flying.
He twisted in the air and landed on one of the workstations. His sword remained in his hand, but blood dripped from the side of his face, and the uncharacteristically concerned look in his eyes said he was in over his head.
The black dragon glanced at Wreylith and roared, but Vorik must have annoyed it sufficiently, because it returned its focus to him.
A crossbow twanged, and a quarrel flew across the laboratory. Fel and Teyla were back at the bed, Teyla poking at something on the platform while Fel stood beside her, firing at an enemy he shouldn’t have wanted to attract. Maybe he felt compelled to help Vorik? Regardless, the quarrel bounced off the dragon’s scaled flank without harming it. It didn’t evennotice, instead flying again for Vorik.
“Syla, these are ancient temple runes,” Teyla called. “I can read them and tell there’s magic to them, but I think they’d mean more to you.”
“Not now,” Syla yelled, forcing herself to continue searching for a switch. Unless the marble bed held the secret to escaping, she wasn’t interested.
More boulders slammed down, landing near the wall under Wreylith. She kept tearing them free, determined to get inside.
As Syla worked her way down the wall, patting and searching, a bug-lizard appeared out of a side aisle. She managed to escape it but had to jump over a workstation and scramble to the other side to avoid a second creature.
The bed came into view again, and she ran toward it. Since they believed it had been added after the storm god departed, she doubted it had anything to do with deactivating the defenses, but more creatures were coming after her. She had little choice but to rejoin Fel. With Vorik in deep trouble of his own, she needed her bodyguard’s protection.
Before she reached the bed, a boulder slammed to the floor scant feet in front of her. She flailed, almost dropping the orb.
“You’re going tokillus, Wreylith!” Syla yelled, though she hadn’t seen if the dragon had knocked that piece free.
